Welcome to the Dartmoor Pony Training Centre

We are the Dartmoor Pony Training Centre (DPTC), a Community Interest Company working on Dartmoor, Devon in the UK.

DPTC works with semi-feral Dartmoor Hill Ponies offering activities and courses based on natural horsemanship methods to benefit both course participants and the ponies.

More about DPTC

We work with groups of children and adults promoting empathy and understanding by learning together with the ponies. Working with the ponies is particularly good for developing effective communication.

Our youtube channel has videos of some of our great activities and more details of our work http://bit.ly/1BGPinV

We also run semi-feral foal and pony handling courses every year in conjunction with our rehoming scheme giving people a chance to work with unhandled ponies leaning handling and training skills.

Since 2006, DPTC has worked with farmers to rehome ponies coming off the moor that would otherwise have had no future and has been able to find homes for 500 ponies who are now living useful lives from riding ponies to conservation grazers.

We work closely with the farmers to promote a reduction in numbers of foals bred and in early 2015 had great success with a fundraising campaign for the vasectomy of a stallion. This stallion is now running with a group of mares on an enclosed common and the herd will continue with their valuable conservation grazing without further breeding.

We're in the process of moving our herd to new land, creating a website, designing a curriculum for the year and, most importantly, building a more sustainable and resilient company so we can continue to find homes for these lovely creatures. As you might imagine, this is going to require some funding. If you'd like to donate to our effort, we'd be grateful and you can do so through Paypal by clicking on the link to the right.

For more info on any of our courses or activities or to rehome a pony, please email us at info@dptc.org.uk or call Natalie on 07802 218169.

For more information on the history and current status of the ponies of Dartmoor, see this fact sheet from the Dartmoor National Park Authority.